


serpent around my heart

by ilivrum



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Episode: s08e04 The Last of the Starks, F/M, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 18:13:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19011184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilivrum/pseuds/ilivrum
Summary: During the night after news comes from the south, Jaime reflects upon his relationship with Cersei, and his new love with Brienne.





	serpent around my heart

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance if anyone is looking for a dialogue heavy fic or one with plot. I kind of wrote this because I wanted to write a piece where I look into the thoughts and feelings of a character. It's quite description heavy so again, apologies.

Last time he’d been to the north, he believed it to be cold then; the slow ride up the Kingsroad had been like a slow dip into a cooling bath, the humidity of the south replaced with the biting cold of the north, gentle breezes turning to whistling winds, clear skies turning clouded and grey. He remembers the way the wind had cut through his armour then, the way his sister and his children had complained, the way the tips of their noses turned red. He’d believed that, then to be cold; after all, that was the kind of cold they experienced in the crownlands when winter rolled around, a gentle kind that invited slight dustings of snow and the occasional morning frost that made walking the streets of King’s Landing a hazard.

Were he to stand in front of his older self, the day he came to Winterfell all those years ago, he would laugh in his face. Truly, he’d known nothing about winter, about true winter, about the cold that would envelop the north and choke the life from it whilst the south moaned about a nip in the air. The snow was deep and punishing, turning what should’ve only been hours of travel into days. The trees were dead, the grass was buried; all semblance of green hidden under a blanket of white. The cold turns fingers and lips blue, makes his ears sting, crawls up his chest and turns his breath to fog when it expels from his mouth. Even behind the walls of the great Winterfell, despite the springs beneath the foundations, the cold is punishing, surrounding them on all sides, reminding them constantly that, truly, there is no escape from winter.

Jaime hates the north, he decides, as he stands by a roaring fire, the logs piled high, and still feels as if he’s standing out in the courtyard in nought but his smallclothes. It’s a dismal kingdom, miserable and harsh, and he finds himself longing for the southern sun; distantly, he wonders how warm Dorne is now, for it’d still been hot and sultry the last he’d visited, an entire world away from the north. He misses the sun, the suffocating heat, the sweat that would roll down his back even as he sat in the shade, simply because it was just that hot.

He’ll never complain about heat again.

Had the dead not threatened to destroy their world and all the living held dear, Jaime would have never travelled north; a Lannister in the north would fare about as well as the Starks had done in the south, considering their crimes against the ancient northern house. But his dreams in King’s Landing had been a far cry from sweet, for they’d been filled with images of rotting wights and ice and blood, of a man with frosted skin and a sword made of ice, riding a skeletal horse and coming to slay all the living in his way. He’s never seen the Night King; the wight that Jon Snow had used in his dramatic demonstration was just one of hundreds of thousands in the King’s service, and the King had been killed in battle by a welp of a girl before Jaime even had the chance to lay eyes on him, leaving behind only a pile of melting ice. He’s never been particularly imaginative either, but it didn’t stop his mind from plaguing him with horrors all night long before he’d set off north.

Once upon a time, leaving King’s Landing willingly would have been the hardest thing for Jaime to do; his sister had her claws deep into his skin, into his heart, part of his very soul, and leaving her behind always made him feel empty, like he’d opened up a chasm in his chest. Slowly, over the years, the chasm had grown smaller each time, the distance between them growing wider with each terrible deed committed. The day Cersei decided the fight for the living was not hers, the distance became impassable; he remembers the way his heart constricted at her callous words, her selfishness and desire to be the last one standing overcoming common decency and sense. Coupled with his nightmares, he rode out from King’s Landing barely days later, riding north to a kingdom he despised and had been complicit in almost razing to the ground.

Now, the dead were truly dead, the ones who’d fallen had been burnt and mourned, and celebrations had been carried out in the form of a great feast, one where all from the Dragon Queen herself down to the lowest peasant had drank their weight in ale and feasted on venison beside a crackling fire.

And Jaime? He’d sought out Brienne in her chambers. They’d talked, he’d awkwardly tried to initiate, she’d smacked his hand away when his stumbling, freezing fingers couldn’t undo his shirt and peeled it away herself. And then he’d lain with her, an act so beautiful that his entire soul felt lighter even days later, and his smile had not faded for hours.

Despite his happiness, his true joy, that he felt for his time with Brienne, there was a pit in his stomach that had been making him ill for hours, so ill that he was still awake now, standing before a fire that was doing nothing to warm him, rather than curled beneath the heavy furs of Brienne’s bed with her in his arms. His ill feeling came from his walk through the castle ground earlier, where he’d found Brienne in conversation with the Lady of Winterfell, Sansa Stark.

Lady Stark’s words rang in his head; the great green dragon, Rhaegal, was dead, the fleet of the Dragon Queen was destroyed, and the quiet, meek advisor of the Queen had been beheaded by the Mountain, on Cersei’s orders, before the Dragon Queen and her entire court. Now, Daenerys Targaryen was preparing to sack the Red Keep, and Jaime knows that Cersei would not be allowed to live. The death of her advisor would not be avenged with just the death of the Mountain; Jaime knows full well that the person who calls the order is more accountable than the man who swings the sword.

When the words had left Lady Stark’s mouth, Jaime had felt the beautiful and blissful world he’d crafted for himself during his time in Winterfell come crashing down. Sansa had been gleeful in telling him, smiling despite voicing her disappointment that she won't be there to witness Cersei’s life finally come to an end, yet Jaime can’t find it in him to hate her for it, for he saw the treatment his sister and his son inflicted on the poor girl, the bruises and the scars that littered her body, the story from Tyrion, how one of the Kingsguard had lifted his sword against the girl on the King’s order, whilst Cersei stood aside and smiled.

But he can’t help but feel sick at the knowledge of his sister’s fate, for he still loved her, deeply and madly, as he had done since they were children at the Rock. He stares into the flames of the fire, and berates himself for not riding south the second the Dragon Queen and her retinue set off; perhaps he’d kidded himself into believing that Daenerys would show his sister mercy, allow her to live; Cersei will be heavily pregnant with their child by now, unless she’d brewed herself moon tea after his departure, and Jaime might have once believed that Daenerys would allow her to birth the innocent babe before taking her life. It’s a foolish fancy; Daenerys’ advisor had been an innocent too, despite her allegiance, having never raised a sword in her life, and Cersei had killed her all the same, taken her head as she knelt in chains.

No mercy would be shown to Cersei, and perhaps the only person in the Seven Kingdoms who mourns that fact is Jaime.

Part of his body is screaming at him to move, to walk away from the fire, from Brienne and her bed, to mount his horse and ride south as fast as he can, to save Cersei and take her away from the Seven Kingdoms, to somewhere where she can have their child in peace and they can build a new life for themselves. But he keeps his feet planted firmly where they are, doesn’t move a muscle, and he can’t tell whether or not he’s paralysed with fear in case he’s too late, or if it’s because he simply just doesn’t want to go.

Cersei is part of him, and he is part of her. They shared a womb together, and that was always their justification for all their actions. They’d believed from the moment they could understand the concept of love that they were meant to be. So many terrible actions weighed both of their shoulders down, maybe Jaime’s even more than hers, and they’d both committed them in the name of love. Cersei was a terrible, terrible woman, the greatest evil in Seven Kingdoms and the source of so much suffering, and Jaime still loved her, in a horribly, twisted way.

Maybe it’s the memory of her at seven-and-ten, pulling her crimson dress apart to bare her milky skin to him. Maybe it’s the memory of her hair in the southern sun, golden and glowing, drawing the eyes of all she passes. Maybe it’s the memory of her eyes, green and scheming, light hitting them and highlighting the flecks of brown in them, her singular physical imperfection, yet it makes her all the more beautiful. And maybe, just maybe, it’s the memory of the way things used to be, two decades ago, when they would kiss under moonlight and whisper sweet nothings over their pillows and truly, truly loved one another.

Maybe it’s the hope that, once all this is over, they’ll go back to the way things used to be.

He’s never been the smartest Lannister - that title went to his brother - but he’s still able to put two and two together, no matter how long it takes. He knows that things can never go back to how it was before. He knows that, his entire life, Cersei has been using him for her own gains, inviting others willingly into her bed when he’s not around but snarling and snapping over him like a predator protecting its kill. He’s built an idealised version of Cersei and her love for him in his head, and it really took coming thousands of miles north to shatter this vision of her.

The biggest had been the day he’d arrived in Winterfell, when he’d looked across the courtyard and seen him; he’d grown so much in the seven years since Jaime had left Winterfell, but it was so obviously him that Jaime had frozen in the courtyard, staring right back at the crippled Bran Stark, who sat in a wooden chair with wheels and was swathed in furs, until a Stark guard had recognised him and raised the alarm.

Seven years ago, he’d crippled a boy for life for Cersei. Maybe Bran Stark had forgiven him - or, at least, come to terms with it - but Jaime will carry that weight for the rest of his life, another evil deed in a long list of evil deeds that earned him the hate and scorn of all.

Except, truly, one.

He turns his head and looks back to Brienne, who sleeps soundly and silently, laying on her side with furs up to her chin, one arm stretched out towards his empty side of the bed. And he smiles, for her face, not conventionally attractive yet so much more beautiful than even the prettiest maid in the Kingdoms, was smooth and peaceful. A warmth in his belly spreads across his body and comforts him better than any fire does at the sight of Brienne, of his lady knight, sleeping so soundly in the bed they now shared, and, for a second, it scared him.

There had been a fire there with Cersei, of course. A roaring one, large and loud and uncontrollable like wildfire; but, like wildfire, it destroyed all those it touched and scorched his soul. Olenna Tyrell had been correct, Cersei would one day be the end of him, for she was human wildfire and she was going to set him alight. Yet, with Brienne, it was a good kind of fire, the one you sit around in a campsite, sharing food and an ale and a terrible but funny story. The one you sit before and laugh and talk. The one that warms your back as you kiss your lady, standing on your toes just to reach her mouth. Soft and beautiful and comforting, the kind of thing that fire should be.

In that moment, Jaime realises exactly why he’s still here in Winterfell and not riding thousands of leagues south to his sister. It’s because of his knight, of her corn yellow hair and her ridiculously long limbs. It’s because of her blue-grey eyes, haughty and mistrusting, yet so warm they could melt butter when she looks at him. It’s because of her loyalty, the way she stood before dragons and wolves to defend him when most would’ve happily seen him roasted alive.

It’s because of her love, the way she opens herself up in the privacy of their bedchamber, the rawness of her feelings, the pure honesty behind her words.

Cersei had wound her way around his heart like a serpent, plunged her fangs in and poisoned him for years, tightening and constricting, squeezing every bit of humanity out of him till nought was left but a horrific beast who took joy in pushing children out of towers.

Brienne had wound her way in too, but she was not here to heal him, or to corrupt him further. She held his heart in her hands and showed him a new kind of love, the true kind, one born of respect and devotion and true happiness. It was the kind of love Jaime had always dreamed of, the kind he knew he’d never recieve down south.

So he takes off his jerkin, strips off his boots and trousers and shirt, and climbs beneath the furs of the bed. The sinking of the down mattress makes Brienne stir and her eyes flutter; she opens them and sees him, a content smile spreading across her face and Jaime can’t help but smile back because hers is so infectious. He settles back on the pillows and her arm worms its way across his stomach, her hands resting against his hip, and he lays his own atop her bicep.

The fire crackles, the wind howls beyond the walls, and their breathing falls into sync. Slowly, Jaime drops into a comforting sleep, and the northern cold does not bother him anymore. Thoughts of south leave his mind, and he drops into slumber.

In years time, he’ll lay on his deathbed. He’ll breathe his last words surrounded by his loved ones and his friends. And he’ll recount his sins, his misdeeds, his regrets. But one thing he will not recount is staying in the north, for he did not go so far to be dragged into hell by his sister.

Even he deserves a chance at happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written a fic in so long that it feels strange to be posting something but honestly the newest season of GOT has me feeling so many things and one of the biggest things is anger at the way Jaime's character development was thrown aside for him to ride south and die under a pile of bricks with his sister.
> 
> Jaime Lannister has always been one of my favourites, both on screen and paper, just because of how complex of a character he is. And maybe this fic ends up being a bit out of character but this is the ending I wanted for him because he deserves better than Cersei. And Brienne, she deserves happiness; to see her crying in the snow as Jaime rode off to certain death was heartbreaking.


End file.
